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Film Description
Provocative award-winning box-office smash. A new secretary in a small firm does her best to please but her typing isn't up to scratch. An unconventional punishment from her boss awakens unexpectedly satisfying possibilities. Office S&M and darkly comic too.
Maggie Gyllenhaal is Lee, fresh out of secretarial school and fresh out of therapy. Addicted to cutting herself and hopelessly adrift in the real world, she occupies h... more >
Maggie Gyllenhaal is Lee, fresh out of secretarial school and fresh out of therapy. Addicted to cutting herself and hopelessly adrift in the real world, she occupies her time despondently floating around the family pool. So when she finds herself in the office of James Spader’s Mr Grey, a successful and sadistic lawyer who takes reserved pleasure in the subtle cruelty and humiliation of his secretaries, you would normally expect things to go from bad to worse. But Secretary is far from normal.
For Lee even the very word Secretary seems to fill her with purpose and pleasure and she dreamily repeats it again and again. His punishments are her pleasure; red circles around her typing errors fuel her masturbatory fantasies and she eagerly and dutifully complies with any demeaning task to please her employer and herself.
Realising their nature the couple embark on a witty and surprising S & M journey of mutual gratification and acceptance. Their anxieties and inhibitions are cancelled out. And the Twin Peaks-esque office with its dark wood, long corridors, manual typewriters and red curtains becomes a surreal sanctuary from the banalities and restrictions of the outside world.
It is to director Steven Shainberg’s credit that a film that could so easily have slipped in to soft porn, male fantasy and sniggering is actually a brilliantly kinky and plausible office romance. The turning point of which is a stunning display of compassion from Grey. After accidentally discovering the rows of band-aids on Lee’s thigh, he sits her down with a mug of hot chocolate and orders her “never, ever to cut herself again”. The awestruck and besotted Lee agrees and in this one beautifully touching scene, Spader (no stranger to these roles) displays a deep humanity in his performance that sets it apart from his usual tight-lipped twitchy trademarks.
But the most praise should be reserved for Maggie Gyllenhall. In this her break-through role she is outstanding. From naïve tragic out-patient to sexually confident submissive, she is fresh, funny and instinctive. And it is largely thanks to her that a risqué subject could be the basis of a brilliant and believable romantic comedy. < less
Steve Turner on 18th November 2003
Maggie Gyllenhaal is Lee, fresh out of secretarial school and fresh out of therapy. Addicted to cutting herself and hopelessly adrift in the real world, she occupies h... more >
Maggie Gyllenhaal is Lee, fresh out of secretarial school and fresh out of therapy. Addicted to cutting herself and hopelessly adrift in the real world, she occupies her time despondently floating around the family pool. So when she finds herself in the office of James Spader’s Mr Grey, a successful and sadistic lawyer who takes reserved pleasure in the subtle cruelty and humiliation of his secretaries, you would normally expect things to go from bad to worse. But Secretary is far from normal.
For Lee even the very word Secretary seems to fill her with purpose and pleasure and she dreamily repeats it again and again. His punishments are her pleasure; red circles around her typing errors fuel her masturbatory fantasies and she eagerly and dutifully complies with any demeaning task to please her employer and herself.
Realising their nature the couple embark on a witty and surprising S & M journey of mutual gratification and acceptance. Their anxieties and inhibitions are cancelled out. And the Twin Peaks-esque office with its dark wood, long corridors, manual typewriters and red curtains becomes a surreal sanctuary from the banalities and restrictions of the outside world.
It is to director Steven Shainberg’s credit that a film that could so easily have slipped in to soft porn, male fantasy and sniggering is actually a brilliantly kinky and plausible office romance. The turning point of which is a stunning display of compassion from Grey. After accidentally discovering the rows of band-aids on Lee’s thigh, he sits her down with a mug of hot chocolate and orders her “never, ever to cut herself again”. The awestruck and besotted Lee agrees and in this one beautifully touching scene, Spader (no stranger to these roles) displays a deep humanity in his performance that sets it apart from his usual tight-lipped twitchy trademarks.
But the most praise should be reserved for Maggie Gyllenhall. In this her break-through role she is outstanding. From naïve tragic out-patient to sexually confident submissive, she is fresh, funny and instinctive. And it is largely thanks to her that a risqué subject could be the basis of a brilliant and believable romantic comedy. < less
Maggie Gyllenhaal is Lee, fresh out of secretarial school and fresh out of therapy. Addicted to cutting herself and hopelessly adrift in the real world, she occupies h... more >
Maggie Gyllenhaal is Lee, fresh out of secretarial school and fresh out of therapy. Addicted to cutting herself and hopelessly adrift in the real world, she occupies her time despondently floating around the family pool. So when she finds herself in the office of James Spader’s Mr Grey, a successful and sadistic lawyer who takes reserved pleasure in the subtle cruelty and humiliation of his secretaries, you would normally expect things to go from bad to worse. But Secretary is far from normal.
For Lee even the very word Secretary seems to fill her with purpose and pleasure and she dreamily repeats it again and again. His punishments are her pleasure; red circles around her typing errors fuel her masturbatory fantasies and she eagerly and dutifully complies with any demeaning task to please her employer and herself.
Realising their nature the couple embark on a witty and surprising S & M journey of mutual gratification and acceptance. Their anxieties and inhibitions are cancelled out. And the Twin Peaks-esque office with its dark wood, long corridors, manual typewriters and red curtains becomes a surreal sanctuary from the banalities and restrictions of the outside world.
It is to director Steven Shainberg’s credit that a film that could so easily have slipped in to soft porn, male fantasy and sniggering is actually a brilliantly kinky and plausible office romance. The turning point of which is a stunning display of compassion from Grey. After accidentally discovering the rows of band-aids on Lee’s thigh, he sits her down with a mug of hot chocolate and orders her “never, ever to cut herself again”. The awestruck and besotted Lee agrees and in this one beautifully touching scene, Spader (no stranger to these roles) displays a deep humanity in his performance that sets it apart from his usual tight-lipped twitchy trademarks.
But the most praise should be reserved for Maggie Gyllenhall. In this her break-through role she is outstanding. From naïve tragic out-patient to sexually confident submissive, she is fresh, funny and instinctive. And it is largely thanks to her that a risqué subject could be the basis of a brilliant and believable romantic comedy. < less
